Dangers of Appliances with Heating Element

This morning one of my Mah Jongg students came into class saying she was exhausted due to a fire in her house last night. She turned her Viking dishwasher on late at night, just before bed. Once asleep she was rudely awakened by some kind of blaring alarm. Thankfully it was a smoke detector attached to her home security system.

Turns out her dishwasher had a short of some kind and the heating element malfunctioned causing a fire. Thankfully she, her husband, visiting daughter and grandchildren all got out of the house safely and three fire trucks came and out the fire out and pulled the dishwasher out into her driveway.

I make it a rule not to run my clothes dryer unless I am home. Now I am going to have to make that same rule for the dishwasher. You just don’t need a revolt by your appliances to cause you to lose your whole house.

Thankfully my student’s situation was not so bad that she missed Mah Jongg class, but now come the nightmare of trying to find a new dishwasher and fix the damage from the old one. She said getting the burning plastic smell out of the house might be the worse. God bless.